WHAT 16 YEARS OF CHICAGO INSPECTIONS ACTUALLY SHOW
Chicago has published every restaurant health inspection as open data since 2010. That’s 313,601 inspections, of which 214,830 cover restaurants and bars. We analyzed the 184,618 that produced an actual pass/fail judgment. The most interesting finding is that the violations inspectors write up most often are almost the opposite of the ones that actually mean something.
The most-cited violation is one of the least serious
Physical Facilities Installed, Maintained & Clean (violation #55) appears on 58.1% of restaurant inspections that carry any violation at all — nearly double the next most common. It is, by a wide margin, the single most written-up item in Chicago.
It is also barely predictive of anything. When inspectors cite it, the inspection fails 29.4% of the time — only 1.11× the baseline failure rate of 26.6% among inspections with violations. In other words, seeing it on a report tells you almost nothing you didn’t already know.
This matters because it’s the violation you are most likely to encounter when you look up a restaurant. A report showing “physical facilities” issues is closer to routine than alarming.
| # | Violation | Share of inspections | Fail rate when cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | Physical Facilities Installed, Maintained & Clean | 58.1% | 29.4% |
| 51 | Plumbing Installed; Proper Backflow Devices | 25.3% | 31.8% |
| 58 | Allergen Training as Required | 23% | 30.9% |
| 56 | Adequate Ventilation & Lighting; Designated Areas Used | 22.7% | 31.8% |
| 10 | Adequate Handwashing Sinks Properly Supplied And Accessible | 21.4% | 46.8% |
| 38 | Insects, Rodents, & Animals Not Present | 20.5% | 63.5% |
| 57 | All Food Employees Have Food Handler Training | 17% | 35.8% |
| 37 | Food Properly Labeled; Original Container | 15.2% | 34% |
The violations that actually predict a failure are far rarer
Ranking violations by how often they coincide with an outright Fail produces a nearly inverted list. Two of the top three aren’t food-safety findings at all — they’re records that a previous violation went uncorrected, which is the clearest signal in the entire dataset.
The most useful one for an ordinary diner is #38: Insects, Rodents, & Animals Not Present. It was cited on 9,525 inspections and coincides with a failure 63.5% of the time — 2.39× baseline. Unlike the paperwork violations above it, this one is common enough to actually show up in a search and serious enough to mean something.
| # | Violation | Times cited | Fail rate | vs. baseline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59 | Previous Priority Foundation Violation Corrected | 814 | 91.2% | 3.43× |
| 25 | Consumer Advisory Provided For Raw/undercooked Food | 1,825 | 85.3% | 3.21× |
| 60 | Previous Core Violation Corrected | 3,877 | 76.6% | 2.88× |
| 48 | Warewashing Facilities: Installed, Maintained & Used; Test Strips | 3,787 | 69.1% | 2.6× |
| 38 | Insects, Rodents, & Animals Not Present | 9,525 | 63.5% | 2.39× |
| 54 | Garbage & Refuse Properly Disposed; Facilities Maintained | 2,788 | 59.1% | 2.22× |
| 52 | Sewage & Waste Water Properly Disposed | 1,083 | 57.2% | 2.15× |
| 23 | Proper Date Marking And Disposition | 948 | 55.1% | 2.07× |
Failure is concentrated in a small group of repeat offenders
Across 27,755 establishments with at least one graded inspection, 16,735 have failed at least once. But 5,254 establishments — those that have failed three or more times — account for 62.6% of all 40,259 failure events in the city’s history.
A single failure is common and usually temporary. A pattern of them is not, and it’s the thing worth looking for in a restaurant’s inspection history rather than its most recent result alone.
Complaints find roughly 52% more problems than routine visits
Routine canvass inspections fail 22.4% of the time. Inspections triggered by a public complaint fail 34.1% of the time — a substantially higher rate, across 22,062 complaint inspections. People who report restaurants are frequently right.
Re-inspections tell the opposite story: 80% pass. Whatever failed the first time usually gets fixed, and fast. That’s the strongest argument against reading a single historical Fail as a permanent verdict.
| Inspection type | Count | Pass | Fail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canvass | 90,748 | 55.1% | 22.4% |
| Canvass Re-inspection | 23,879 | 80% | 7.1% |
| Complaint | 22,062 | 42.5% | 34.1% |
| Complaint Re-inspection | 9,326 | 76.5% | 10.9% |
| License | 21,023 | 53.8% | 34.7% |
| License Re-inspection | 7,316 | 78.3% | 8.7% |
August is the worst month to be inspected. December is the best.
Across all 184,618 graded inspections, August carries a 23.6% failure rate and December a 19% one — a 24% relative difference. The warm-weather months from June through October sit consistently above the winter ones, which is what you’d expect if temperature control and pest pressure drive a meaningful share of violations.
A caution on this figure: it describes when inspections are failed, not necessarily when restaurants are dirtiest. Inspection volume and mix also shift seasonally.
| Month | Inspections | Fail rate |
|---|---|---|
| January | 15,283 | 21.2% |
| February | 14,040 | 21.3% |
| March | 16,818 | 20.7% |
| April | 16,351 | 21.4% |
| May | 16,677 | 21.3% |
| June | 17,298 | 22.9% |
| July | 15,098 | 22.6% |
| August | 16,404 | 23.6% |
| September | 14,884 | 23.4% |
| October | 15,893 | 22.6% |
| November | 13,574 | 20.9% |
| December | 12,298 | 19% |
Failure rates peaked in 2022 and have fallen since
The citywide failure rate climbed through the pandemic years to 25% in 2022, its highest since 2010, and has declined to 20.7% in 2026. The 2010–2011 rates were higher still, at over 23%, so the long arc is downward with a pandemic-era interruption.
| Year | Inspections | Fail rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 10,750 | 24.4% |
| 2011 | 10,967 | 23.2% |
| 2012 | 10,232 | 21.5% |
| 2013 | 11,851 | 18.7% |
| 2014 | 13,485 | 19.2% |
| 2015 | 12,407 | 20.2% |
| 2016 | 14,167 | 21.1% |
| 2017 | 13,213 | 22.2% |
| 2018 | 10,217 | 21% |
| 2019 | 11,362 | 22% |
| 2020 | 8,143 | 22.5% |
| 2021 | 9,057 | 23.2% |
| 2022 | 9,900 | 25% |
| 2023 | 10,574 | 24.5% |
| 2024 | 11,218 | 21.6% |
| 2025 | 11,515 | 21.2% |
| 2026 | 5,560 | 20.7% |
How this was calculated
Every figure comes from the City of Chicago’s public Food Inspections dataset (4ijn-s7e5), the same feed that powers the rest of this site. Four choices shape the numbers, and different choices would produce different results:
- Restaurants and bars only. The city’s feed also covers schools, daycares, hospitals, and grocers. Including them changes every rate on this page, because those categories are inspected under different expectations.
- Only graded inspections count. Results of “Out of Business”, “No Entry”, and “Not Ready” are excluded — they aren’t judgments about food safety. That removes 30,212 records.
- Violation analysis starts 2021. Chicago renumbered its violation codes in mid-2018 to align with the FDA Food Code. Comparing citations across that boundary would compare codes that mean different things.
- One citation per inspection. A violation cited twice in one report counts once, so percentages describe how many inspections mention an item, not raw citation volume.
Analysis last regenerated 2026-08-03. GutCheck is an independent service and is not affiliated with the City of Chicago. The underlying data is published by the Chicago Department of Public Health; the city notes it may contain duplicate records and should be verified against official sources for any consequential use.